How Restricted is the Internet in Qatar?

As Freedom House further states the ISPs of Qatar direct any traffic “to a proxy server that maintains a list of banned websites and blocks material deemed inconsistent with the religious, cultural, political, and moral values of Qatar.”

Like in many non-democratic countries politically or culturally sensitive content is blocked, no matter if you are just visiting or a citizen. There have been a few prominent cases of interference with international press coverage but for most people, it will be more interesting to know what you can or cannot use online.

Cons

6. PureVPN

PureVPN is a big and provider and offers a great variety of locations which is great for hiding properly, but they can have issues with DNS security and therefore we don’t wholeheartedly recommend them for use in Qatar.

Pros

NAT firewall

Kill-switch

Tilera & Arbor DDos protection

256-bit encryption

Zero-logs privacy policy

5 multi logins

Cons

Which Services are Blocked in Qatar?

The most surprising might be that VOIP services are not accessible in Qatar. As ZDnet laid out this is due to the telecommunications regulations that forbid anyone but licensed entities to provide telecommunication services without a license. This affects many popular services like Skype, WhatsApp, Viber, FaceTime, and Duo.

The only two providers for telecommunication services of any kind are therefore state-owned Ooredoo (formerly Qatar Telecom) and Vodafone Qatar with government funds being the majority shareholders.

Consequently, the government of Qatar has also finical interests to keep free VOIP out of the market.

Are VPN’s Illegal to Use in Qatar?

VPN services act somewhat in a grey area. In theory, VPNs are completely legal, though, the usage of VPNs to circumvent government regulations might be considered illegal.

In Qatar, however, it seems to be deemed not punishable for users to access VOIP via a VPN.

Bottom line:

As you noticed there are a lot of choices when picking your VPN provider and many offer a decent service.

Yearly subscription vary between 4$ and 7$ per month while fees for a single month sit around 10$..

All VPNs we listed here offer good privacy and encrypted communication. Many providers offer free trials or money back guarantees.

Therefore we would recommend to try different ones before you you decide for sure.

Making sure also has the advantage that you can be less hesitant when choosing a long-term subscription plan. But look out for special offers that oftentimes offer a significant discount.

After all is said and done it comes down to your preferences of use.

All security tools won’t help if the rest of the package doesn’t suit your needs.